The impairment of landscapes is a concern constantly raised against wind energy developments in Germany
as in other countries. Often, landscapes or landscape types are treated in the literature as essentialist or
at least as uncontested categories. We analyse two examples of local…

As part of the planned expansion work of the motorway A8 between Rosenheim and Salzburg and the
associated legal opportunity to develop new traffic noise protection measures, this study investigated
properties of sustainable noise abatement in a community next to the A8. A two-stage…

The ecosystems of our intensively used European landscapes produce a variety of natural goods and services for the benefit
of humankind, and secure the basics and quality of life. Because these ecosystems are still undergoing fundamental changes,
the interest of the society is to…

This review paper focuses on research schemes regarding urbanity and urbanization, and brings together both cultural and physical approaches. First, we review the cultural and social construction of urbanity (as related to urbanization) in Germany. In the early 20th century, urbanity was mainly…

The effects determined in the landscape by plants powered by renewable sources represent some unresolved issues in terms of visual and landscape impact mitigation in general. These aspects relate to the landscape are recognized in all types of impact with due attention to the various components…

Land-use and land-cover change profoundly affect human well-being and, therefore, have become a major topic for society. A thorough understanding of past and present processes transforming landscapes is essential for guiding future developments toward the sustained provision of the ecosystem…

Three global datasets, the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE), Kaplan and Krumhardt (KK) and Pongratz of reconstructed anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) were introduced and compared in this paper. The HYDE dataset was reconstructed by Goldewijk and his colleagues at the…

The Berchtesgaden National Park (Bavaria, Germany), a study site of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere program in the catchment of Berchtesgadener Ache, is introduced as a platform for interdisciplinary research. As the investigation of how human activities affect the natural resources in the park…

The provision of ecosystem services at the landscape level can be significantly influenced by land management practices. Within an agriculturally dominated case study area in Saxony, Germany, a more detailed land use classification, which includes differentiated information on agricultural…

Urbanisation is an important driver of biodiversity loss, also contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation of grasslands at the urban-rural interface. While urban green spaces are known to include many grassland habitats, it is uncertain to what extent urban land use types harbour grasslands…

The assessment of cultural ecosystem services, in our case landscape aesthetics, is the most commonly investigated but least formalized issue in the scope of the ecosystem services concept. In contrast to ecological or economic aspects, the assessment of aesthetics cannot easily be based on…

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on urban common property systems. We deal with urban commons in relation to urban green-space management, referring to them as urban green commons. Applying a property-rights analytic perspective, we synthesize information on urban green commons from…